All work and no play makes Anneka Harry a dull gal. That’s why she took 93 glorious minutes out to re-watch her childhood fave, 1998’s all singing, all dancing, all girl power-ful, Spice World. She suggests you immediately do the same.

The film ends (MASSIVE, GREAT FLIPPIN’ SPOILER ALERT) with the hyperactive, glorious Girls of Spice interrupting the credits to shout out to everyone watching the film in cinemas or ‘at home on video’. Not only would it be quite frankly berserk to still own a VHS player today, my video tape copy of Spice World was probably watched around a thousand times – it was pretty much dead by 1999. For re-sharing this vintage slice of my life and re-connecting me to my Spicey roots, I am forever indebted to Netflix. If, like me, you lived for this pop phenomenon, you will realise that you know every word. If you never saw it (or were more into the Backstreet Boys) I’m sorry that you were brought up under a rock. Life must have been tough for you. I can only hope that Netflix has given you a small flavour of what it meant to be a Spice Girls fanatic in the 90’s.

So, the film is hilariously terrible. Nobody ever told me that the bands acting is as eggy as Easter or that the plot is non-existent. I was obviously too consumed in all the blue eye shadow, the glitter, the Kappa and the tasselled combats to notice before. Either that or all the Spice Girls Impulse fumes and Chupa Chups sugar levels had polluted my young mind. Honestly, its like a panto on acid. There’s more montage, daydream sequences and flash forwards than storyline but the nostalgia, pure joy and silliness of dress up scenes and alien encounters are all you really need. Not to mention the insanely shiny star studded cast. I imagine if you were a big deal in 1998 and you weren’t asked to be in this film you would have taken early retirement in a huff. I mean, seriously, Meat Loaf even plays the (union jack adorned double decker) tour bus driver. This is the stuff of genius.

This recommendation comes with a serious warning, however. If you sit down to watch this film again after all these years YOU WILL FEEL REALLY OLD. The girls themselves look like infants, the jokes feel so ye olde, there’s even a micro pig in it that is probably a full blown pot bellied pig now. Baby Spice sits back at one point and imagines what it will be like when they are all THIRTY. I mean, I’m not quite there yet but it is certainly looming and I still feel like I want to pack it all in, wear my hair in bunches and start a girl band. I was reminded of the day my cousin and I came home from the cinema after seeing Spice World for the first time. We locked ourselves in my wendy house in our mountainous platforms and started our own band, ‘Chaos’ (‘We are Chaos, us two, know what we want, we gonna give it to you!’) We felt like we could do anything, be anyone and we were absolutely certain we were going to be signed that afternoon. That was the power of Spice.

Spice World feels today like one of the worse films but it will always be one of my best. Stop right now, thank you very much and watch it. It will spice up your ageing life.